You're right that this is a matter of personal philosophy. I view it as an optimization problem. Given a set number of tax dollars collected, everyone wants a

You're right that this is a matter of personal philosophy. I view it as an optimization problem. Given a set number of tax dollars collected, everyone wants a piece of it. I don't trust people to allocate these correctly. The alternative is to give less of these dollars so less corruption and mistakes can occur, which is what I view is better. As for using the next generation to support the older generation through taxation, this does not seem to work very well in practice. As societies reach higher quality of life, like in the US, Japan, some Euro countries, there tends to be a drop in birth rates. There are other factors in play (career opportunities, culture), as in some of these countries giving birth is highly encouraged (e.g. Japan pays families to give birth). I just view it as risky to expect there to be enough children to support all the old folks. They might even vote those benefits out and you'll be left hanging. For example, if we're going to mandate something, rather than Social Security a mandatory 401k-style plan seems better. That account is yours, it's your own money, and the government just asks you to deposit 5-10% of every paycheck into that account and you can withdraw a fraction of that account with some interval once you're 50. Maybe it can used to pay for health care before 50.